Age-Group Rivals Tie for First in Epic Marathon Finish

Three-hundredths of a second is the approximate time a hummingbird takes to flap its wings once. It’s also the official chip-time separation between Ray Moorehead, 52, and Scott Clark, 51, the top two finishers at the Johnny Miles Marathon in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Canada held Sunday.

A last-millisecond burst, and perhaps a light breeze, helped the bib pinned to Moorehead’s shorts flutter across the red finish tape before Clark. Timing sensors gave Moorehead the tiniest edge, but he insisted both runners put forth an equal effort. Race officials agreed and recorded both official results as 2:50:13—the marathon’s first tie in its 40-year history.

“Scott is a great competitor and the only thing to do was to share this with him,” Moorehead told Runner’s World Newswire. “The race was too close to determine by the eye, so I asked the race directors if we could just call it a tie.”

For 30K the duo stayed in a pack trying to chase down the early leader. Moorehead then surged, pulling ahead of Clark and the rest of the field by more than a minute. But fatigue crept into his legs, allowing Clark to reel him in.

“With 2K to go there is a turnaround point and I saw I was only about 150 meters behind Ray,” Clark told Newswire. “I saw that he was hurting and I knew I had something left.”

He caught up with less then a kilometer to go, yelling at Moorehead, “Let’s work hard and finish this together.”

“That’s when the gates of hell opened up and it was virtually an all-out sprint,” Moorehead said. “We jockeyed back and forth like a couple of racehorses.”

They broke the tape together before Moorehead collapsed on a table while Clark fell to his knees.

“I’ve never hurt that much in a marathon before,” Moorehead said.

This isn’t the first time the age-group rivals have battled to a tight finish. Last October, Moorhead edged out Clark by one second to take fourth at the Prince Edward Island Marathon.

“I don’t know Ray very well outside of running, but we think almost identically during races; it’s uncanny,” Clark said.

While Moorehead returns to his job as the aquatics coordinator at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Clark retired earlier this year. He’s using that extra time to train.

He expects to chase Moorehead down at another local race soon.

Kit FoxSpecial Projects EditorKit has been a health, fitness, and running journalist for the past five years.

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